


Three Feet Smol But He Got It All

by Charliegolightly



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: AU, Commissioned, First Time Pickles and Nathan meet, Fluff, Gen, Very Small Pickles, friendship!, he's like three feet tall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 11:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6982357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charliegolightly/pseuds/Charliegolightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Life and Times of Pickles the Drummer--who is really quite smol.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Feet Smol But He Got It All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tallywagger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallywagger/gifts).



> A commission for a very lovely person. I hope you enjoy this lil exploration of Smol Pickles being a lil bad ass. I wanted to just do a big piece on such a little Pickle, and so a lot of the affectionate stuff is at the end and kind small, but i kinda think it works? I hope so at least.
> 
> went a bit over 2k but i couldn't help myself. :3 u deserve it all anyhow

Thirty some odd years ago, a young mother named Molly had given birth to her second son, who had been born alarmingly small. The doctors had been concerned during the ultrasounds, but technology back then was not all it was cracked up to be like it is today. They had no idea what the child would be like until day of delivery, and though Pickles had actually been born  _ late  _ (fashionably so, he liked to say), he was small enough to rest in the palm of the doctor's hand.

A real live "Tom Thumb" people would comment later on as he grew up, but those comments his adorableness stopped when the garage had burned down. Of  _ course  _ Pickles did it, nevermind the fact that he shouldn't have been able to reach the gas canisters. Nevermind that Seth reeked of gasoline, he had only tried to stop the fire and save his teeny tiny brother. Seth was so good and sweet, and Pickles was just a little abomination acting out. 

When Seth dropped out to go deal meth his with his buddies down the street, the jokes remained, and all their parents’ bitterness focused on Pickles. Booze became a distraction, and music as a healing purpose in the young man's life. With the little knowledge retained from a few piano lessons, he focused on an instrument he could play without wanting to  _ actually  _ set something on fire: guitar. 

The guitar let Pickles express some rage, some wildness that his height had often held him back from. At sixteen and three-feet, Pickles decided to get the fuck out of his parents' home and live with a friend (and drug runner) to finish out high school. He barely got through that, but his school begrudgingly gave him a too-big gown and cap, and he drunkenly waved his diploma in the face of the annoyed looking staff.  He took off on a bus headed for L.A the next day.

"Fuck this frozen shit heap!" Pickles shouted out the window of the Greyhound, his middle fingers up as he stood on the seat. A woman behind him asked him where his mother was and said that nobody liked rowdy children, which lead to Pickles kicked off the bus. Apparently, it was inappropriate to start fights on public transportation.  Hitchhiking his way to the next bus stop, he played up the the 'lost child' gimmick when he could, and learned when to pull a knife on a creep. Dealing with all that shit made L.A. easy. Producers were nothing compared to his parents. He made it clear to them he didn’t want to be a freakshow.   
  
“Of course not," they told him, but found some way to wheedle in the suggestion to use his 'condition' to help grow his career. He told them all the same thing:   
  
“Go fuck yourself.” 

Busking paid his way for the first few months in the city, and had the upside of self-advertising. Soon enough, Pickles got the idea to just form a band on his own, and fliers for auditions were posted up. Most went unnoticed, as he couldn’t reach the eye-level, but a few fans of his busking helped out and spread the word for him. He had a group together in almost no-time after that.

Snakes N' Barrels took off almost as soon as the band formed, and Pickles soaked in the limelight as their frontman. His hair nearly added half a foot to his height, along with his heeled boots, but the smallness was undeniable even on the raised stage with these additions. Antonio was nearly six feet, and Snizzy over it. Hell, Sammy's base drum could comfortably house Pickles.

They worked with it, though, and once or twice, a false base drum was used just so Pickles could shoot out from it. Tony called it "pulling a Porky Pig" one time, and got a swift punch to the back of his knee from Pickles. However ridiculous it might've been in practice, the audience ate it the fuck up, and later backstage the girls (and a few guys) ate them up.

It burned out fast, though, the frenetic music of their Glam Metal band not doing  _ enough  _ for Pickles. Sure, it was great to get all this energy out, but none of the pent up rage he'd been feeling all his life was really reflecting in it. Everytime he wanted to go heavier, the rest of the guys shot it down. They got comfortable with same easy gigs, the starlit fame of 80s hair metal, and all its drugs. Talking about anything darker than a girl leaving them heartbroken was 'too much’.

Pickles' manager told him to stick with it, that no one in the metal community wanted a frontman three-feet high, especially one who'd spent the last three years on the circuit wearing tight pants and teased hair. Pickles told him the same thing he told damn-near everyone who kept him from what he wanted: 

"Go fuck yourself."

That was the end of S’N’B. Pickles distanced himself from the guitar, and used some cash from his last fat paycheck to get a custom-built drum kit. On the drums he could make all the too-big feelings he had explode. People stopped when they heard the wicked-fast beats, the concussive force of his sticks slamming down on the cymbals, the pedals against the bass. They tossed dollars and coins into the bucket in front of him; a lot more tourists stopped and filmed the strange 'little kid with dreads' playing the 'cute little drum set'. Whatever, fuck what they thought about him. It was the music Pickles cared about, and they liked it. 

A few big wigs even him offered him band gigs. Pickles would hear them out, take their offered free meals and beer, even sit in and hear the bands play sometimes. Always, he turned them down. Sleazy execs wanting to cash in on his novelty, and all of them wanted to use his previous fame. 

_ "Do you still play guitar?" _

_ "Are you attached to these dreads? We want _ **_big hair_ ** _.  You know, toupees have come a long way." _

His response was always the same:  "Go fuck yourself."

It seemed like the one thing he could never tell his parents, he had all the time in the world to say to some of the most powerful people in the entertainment business. His reputation for having balls twice the size of himself became fairly infamous. Eventually, the execs stopped coming, fed up with the burnout freak who turned them down.

Pickles put his frustration into drumming.Things got desperate, but he refused to give in to the increasingly fewer offers, no matter how hungry and strung out he got. He couldn’t compromise his music for easy money, not  again. Playing for change until he found where he belonged would do.

One day, he noticed some huge guy in the crowd. The dude stood there, arms crossed over a broad chest, and...watched. He never put change in the bucket, but didn't call out rude shit either. No, instead, he stared through a curtain of black hair with intense green eyes, and listened to Pickles play. It went every day for about two weeks, and it creeped Pickles out. 

Sure, he had some regulars, but those dudes would at least  _ talk  _ now and then, or throw in a couple bucks, give him a beer. They didn't just stare at him like...Well, Pickles wasn't sure  _ what _ . It felt predatory and calculating, but not in a way he was familiar with. Not in the "how can I make a quick buck off of this?" manner that the suits did. It felt like...he was being sized up.

Pickles played faster and harder though, and found himself wanting this weird, too-big guy with the gator-green eyes to say something. He wanted to give him a  _ reason  _ to comment, to put some fucking money in the bucket. 

At the end of the month, with sweat pouring down from under his headband, Pickles got his wish. This time the dude hadn't left with the rest of the onlookers at the end of the day. He watched Pickles dump the remains of a water jug over his head, and with a deep voice, spoke. 

"Hey.”   
  
“Holy shit!” Pickles startled.   
  
“S-sorry,” the guy replied, seeming weirdly shy, and then did something even more unexpected. The mountain of dude knelt down to be more on Pickles’ level, but not in that condescending way other people did. More like the dude just didn’t wanna strain his neck.

“...You need somethin’?” Pickles prompted when the silence stretched on. The dude nodded, and almost shouted like he had no volume control.   
  
“YOU PLAY GOOD.”   
  
“Whoa,” Pickles leaned away and snorted. “Uh, THANKS, DOOD, BUT YOU DON’T GOTTA SHOUT. I’m small, not deaf.”   
  
“Oh. Sorry.” The guy seemed nervous.   
  
“No prob,” Pickles smiled though, and started taking his kit apart, setting it onto a kiddie wagon. “Seriously, though, you been standin’ around for a month, watching me play. What’s up, big guy?”   
  
“Uh,” the stranger fidgeted, and that silent, intent expression Pickles saw everyday returned. The other guy leaned forward, his voice a deep tone that carried without needing to shout, and still shook Pickles to the core. “I want you in my band.”

“Oh?” Pickles heard himself say, and for the first time in a long time actually  _ felt _ small. His confidence and personality more than made up for his short stature, and the limitations being toddler-height in an adult world mostly frustrated him. But that voice, made the world feel huge again, like some yawning, ancient maw ready swallow him whole.  “What..uh, kinda band?”

“Death Metal.”

Pickles saw the guy’s mouth twitch in a small smile, and realized it was because he himself had smiled first. Despite all the hundreds of assholes and execs and producers with offers of cash and stability he’d turned down, Pickles just gave a complete weirdo stranger his signature smirk, and shrugged his shoulder.   
  
“Sure thing, man. What’s your name?”

“Nathan Explosion, and you’re...uh…” Nathan leaned back, looking at the tip bucket with its writing in faded marker. “...Pickles?”

“Well, that’s just an old pickle bucket I took from  the back of a bar,” Pickles pointed out with another shrug and a grin. “But, coincidentally, yes that is also my name.”

“Huh. Not very brutal,” Nathan replied with a small frown.   
  
“I don’t really give a titty-fuckin shit if it ain’t,” Pickles smiled, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “I’m more than fuckin’ brutal enough. Guys my size with a name like ‘Pickles’ don’t get this far without being brutal.”

“Huh. Good point,” Nathan smiled again, this time showing large and slightly chipped teeth, and jerked his thumb toward a parking lot. “Want help with your drums? I gotta truck. I can show you where the rest of the band’s been practicin’. We all, uh, kinda live together.”   
  
“Cool, man, I did that with my old band,” Pickles agreed, and got the rest of his shit loaded up on the Red Wagon™. Nathan only helped him get it in the back of the truck, letting Pickles tow it there, but did hoist Pickles up into the cab of the truck by the back of his shirt. Pickles settled in the seat, and then gave Nathan’s trunk-like, thick arm a firm punch.   
  
“Ow! What the fuck!?”   
  
“I ain’t a kid, don’t fuckin’ do that.”   
  
“Fine, you can crawl your own ass up in the truck next time, you mean little fuck,” Nathan growled, and smacked the back of Pickles’ head. They both glared at each other, and then burst out laughing.    
  
“...I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Nat’n.”   
  
“Gay. But yeah, okay.”

And it was. It was the gayest and most brutal friendship of all time. And it fucking rocked. Many years down the road, in Dethklok’s massive mansion in its own country, Pickles would sit on the couch next to Nathan and think about the day he first met the big weirdo. He understood why he felt so small next to him (besides the obvious of being so much smaller). Nathan’s heart was so big, his admiration and aspirations so genuine, how could anyone feel big in the face of it?   
  
Pickles smiled, and cuddled up next to the big, who grunted in his sleep, and brought his arm down to hold Pickles up against him. What a great feeling to be three-feet tall and have it all.


End file.
